


i hope it stays dark forever

by orphan_account



Series: Unhealthily Pale (the remix) [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Quadrant Confusion, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 19:48:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4317531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>KANAYA: Actually I Was Just Thinking <br/>KANAYA: Its Nice To Get A Little Sun After So Long </p><p>or, alternatively:</p><p>Kanaya and Rose spiral down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i hope it stays dark forever

**Author's Note:**

> I hope it stays dark forever  
> I hope the worst isn't over  
> And I hope you blink before I do  
> And I hope I never get sober   
>  (okay, yes this song is overused, but to be fair, i dont care)

Your name is Kanaya Maryam, and you have missed the sun dearly. You look directly into the sun’s strange green glow, and feel your cheeks stretch with a small smile. Its rays are the sweetest benediction, and you close your eyes, searching for the colourful spots you once counted in your eyelid’s darkness.

You didn’t actually know how much longer you could last without seeing it, and more than once you wondered of the effect its absence had had on your stability. As you stand there, torso splattered violet with the blood of the destroyer of hope, knuckles stained pale cerulean with your old, horrible crush, and a festering headache at the thought of that fucking _joke_ , you wonder if this is your reward. Your blessing, your saving grace, your permission to stop playing a game built for killers and simply bask. You are tempted to sit down and bathe in a strange mixture of glory and failure, a calmness reserved for those done with the pointless desires of the living, yet Karkat’s plans interrupt you. 

He is complaining of the one thing you wish you couldn’t fault, (the green is perhaps a shade too lime) and you warn him of your attachment to the dying star before he steps too far. He deserves better, you think, than that filthy clown, and you think he is the one that needs calming. His later panic attack confirms this to you, and you hope Gamzee, (even thinking his names sets you aflame) will not be permitted to taint anyone else.  
And when you stand there, glad to begin a journey with less expectations, she stops you.  
“But what if we need your help?”

You look into her eyes and realise the sun was not your reward, but your punishment. You would be given a bittersweet glimpse at its beauty, at its _light_ , and watch it switch with a paler replacement. You don’t know where these thoughts have come from, and worry that the sun did not calm you like you had wished.  
You had watched her rise, glorious, from the sun’s birth, and you had never wanted her more.

And, as you swap your gaze between all you have known and that you do not, you hope this just means she knows how to inspire purpose in you. That, maybe, your job is not yet done. And yet, and yet, you wish it was. In the back of your mind, you know that if she were not here, if you weren’t so hopelessly in love with this stranger, you would be allowed respite. (She had told you later, that miscarriages were often not spoken of, but granted their owner with a respectful distance for mourning. You wish this had been allowed for you.) Aradia may be incredibly powerful, but even she admitted she could not predict your future as custodian, or even the legitimacy of your past assignment. You touch the swell of your stomach with a gentle palm, and clench. You had been bred for this, hatched for this, and you blame everything and everyone. Your hand comes away violet, and you stare. You gave him the necessary weapon, and you gave him the power to ruin simply because of a naive underestimation. You would not fall prey to the same mistakes.   
Rose is still waiting for a response, and you taste the grim, darkened corridors even before you commit yourself to them. Sacrifices must be made, so that a world can be born anew. You know, in the heart of your heart, that you will never be the foreign concept of a mother that your ancestor was, or a mentor to an impressionable race. You don’t know who to hate, as you begin your answer.  
“Well,” you say, teasing her with uncertainty as a petty revenge, but the greatest to offer towards a seer, “All right.”

Her glee is distorted by the putrid reflections of green onto her skin, and you know your own glow will not be enough to negate it. You shake your mind of these thoughts, and muse that you are simply still angry from the countless betrayals of tonight. A flicker of the light later, and the shadows fall differently, and her face is illuminated rather pleasantly. You think of her recklessness, her mystery, and her fury, and hope you have not repeated your past mistakes. You wonder if she too will rely upon you for light, as she suggests with her argument, and if the implication that she is deficient in it is also true. 

You did not see her go grimdark, as you were later informed, but her screen revealed her intentions, and that she strayed from her game-chosen path. Just as you did, although not willingly. You look at her, and marvel at your differences, your opposites, and think of the potential. Her flirtations are most welcome, you amend, and note your shaking hands, ~~(fists)~~ even if they lean on the side of her lusus’ passive aggressiveness. You paw at her words for double meanings, as you have grown reluctantly skillful at finding underlying intent, yet find none.   
You think of how she has changed you, and wonder if it was for better or worse.

.

When you were small, you had watched movies with Karkat, communicating over trollian. You had limited access to your culture, and despite the undead you fought some nights, you did not share similar passions. Karkat understood this, as he himself was an outsider from the culture he longed to be in, to fight for. Eventually, thankfully, he stopped watching so many military movies. Soon, your movie nights became primarily laughing at and marveling at romantic comedies, and it is here where you learnt of what to expect. A first kiss, the purest form of romance, had to be performed with the utmost respect. When you thought of how you might have yours, you hoped for a garden at sunrise.   
You learn to accept disappointment.

.

Tonight is the night you first drink from her, and she intends to fulfill every one of your old rainbow drinker fantasies. You neglect to inform her that you were the one you wanted to bleed, back then, and reconsider. Her eyes are the one part of her, you think, that remained as bright and violet as your aspirations for her. Although she would never be what you had wanted, her eyes were still just as you had imagined for her. The white, of course, was a surprise, but you found it made a much better contrast than the mustard yellow. Less harsh on the eyes, you believe, and you think of your childhood bedroom. You kiss her, gently. She often complained your fangs were too sharp, but she never minded when you drew blood. You suppose you had both once wanted to bleed. You drop your head down to her neck, and inhale.   
“Kanaya,” she says, and you stop at once. She lifts you up, and you look into each other’s eyes of a few brief, breathless moments. She is blushing with the warmth of the liquor that you suggested she drink for the pain, and for her nerves, and you know what she will say, and what you will say in return. A blessing, in this time of unpredictability.   
You reach your palm to her cheek, and mouth her words as she says them.  
“I love you.”  
Your heart sings, and you think you might cry. You know she will kiss their stains off your eyelids, and you hesitate.  
“I love you, too.”  
You bite.

She tastes like Karkat and you hate yourself for it.

.

“Do you ever think,” she begins, “of Doc Scratch?”

.

Before the worst of her drinking happened, and her subsequent, recurrent downfall, her nightmares began scaring even you. She woke aflame, and the black tendrils spoke knowledge of your fears. They kissed her flesh, tauntingly, and you watch her skin darken. She is grey, like you were, although her funereal shade pronounced her preserved alien state. From her lips fall ancient curses, an assault of screaming gregorian chants, and they tumble like spiders. You cannot translate.   
Breathing slowly, you do not kiss her on her antediluvian lips, but shake her hollow torso until she wakes. It takes much longer than you expected, and your wrists grow weak with the effort, her black flames scalding to the touch. Pausing, you measure your alabaster skin again her own hue, and your glow against her shadow. A love like this would be heavily approved by the movies you watched with Karkat. Sought after, even. As she flickered on and off, you lay your head next to her burning white hair. Even now, you think fondly of her.  
Your inverse.  
Unfortunately, you’d have to disagree with Karkat and his romantic comedies.  
You don’t think an attraction of opposites could ever result in anything but pain and chaos.

.

“I try not to.”

.

You alchemize her a violin, and she tells no one. She told you she had not played for years, and you push her to try, and bitterly hope she will fail. You wish you did not feel this way, but it is another way to see her confidence leave, and another way for the universe’s cruelty to reveal itself to you. She looks at you with such cloudy eyes, and although her alcohol has not yet consumed her, she is already beginning to doubt her purpose. You think back to your decision, to the one that she changed in honour of a future she would lead the path to, and punish yourself through her. She was in no position to drag me into this, yet you are so desperately glad she did. You, of all people, did not earn the sun’s rays.   
You think of your youth, and your days spent in joy, and your nights in terror, and of a man so bright in his whiteness telling you of a world without dark. A kingdom built yellow and golden, a gateway to your dreams. An unfair trade that you had accepted, and one that had to be balanced later in life. You bite on your tongue, just to taste the metallic pain, and think of him.   
He was the first who you idolized, and the first who fell from your pedestal. The first of many. Some nights you still thought of your first encounter with Rose, of her imagined perfection and eloquence. How you wished she would be a reflection of your greatest desires and goals, and how she instead showed your failures.   
He never did tell you what he was a doctor of, but you still kept your wish to heal. He did tell you, however, that he was made for keeping things neat and orderly, and ensuring that things would happen as they meant to. And to prepare you, for your role of healer, he would teach you what he knew. His words were much too sweet to be true, and you never did quite recover from it.

.

Your words speak your failed efforts.

.

Rose wakes up screaming, one night. She gasps upright, heaving, and you are there instantly. You press a hand to the curve of her face, and hum softly, until her breathing slows. She lunges for a bottle, and you place your hand in hers as a replacement. She quietly sobs into your chest, and you rub her back. Distantly, you think of Karkat, and hope Gamzee has miraculously _(ha)_ recovered enough to give that boy the trust he deserves. You don’t think you could manage both. 

You remember her wish that you could teach her all of your quadrants, and you wonder if it was a restriction.  
Rose kisses you, sweetly, and pushes you back into the bed. You help her forget.

Your nightmares are not so declarative. You think you do not sleep longer enough to enter the dreaming phase, and you are too late to dream of anything but blackness. Prospit, you think, had come too early, or you had slept too early, and you would almost anything to get it back. You stop sleeping altogether, and hope for a visit, a scolding.

.

You hope he didn’t ruin you both.

.

At first, she won’t let you stop her from drinking. To spite her, you drink from her every night. It scares you, sometimes, how much you want her.

Bitterly, you wonder how far you will go. 

.

“Are you going to break up with me?” she asks, and you omit her drunken words out of pure pity. She deserves better.  
Despite your anger, her words still send a dagger straight to your heart, and you cannot imagine a life without her. You need her too much. Your neediness, however, sparks your anger back up, and you don’t remember what you break. You did not give up three years of light for this.  
“I love you,” she says, afterwards, and you taste the desperation.   
You don’t respond.  
.

She could never be a sun, you think. She would burn too brightly and die too soon. You pray anyway.

.

**Author's Note:**

> okay...next time they'll be happy, i promise.
> 
> also i have a fanmix for this series which inspired me to write it
> 
> http://8tracks.com/burgundyrose/unhealthily-pale


End file.
